


spreading inside of me

by verseau



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Professors, Dom/sub, Humiliation, Humor, M/M, Meet-Cute, Power Dynamics, Slut Shaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 10:41:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17058281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verseau/pseuds/verseau
Summary: “Kyungsoo,” Jongin begins. What can he say?I feel like I’ve always known you. Like we just picked up an old conversation.Jongin falters, mouth open and shut. His face is warm. Kyungsoo smirks, a small, knowing thing.Jongin and Kyungsoo are professors at a very reputable university, and they do a few disreputable things.





	spreading inside of me

**Author's Note:**

> a few things: when i checked, many seoul national uni professors got their phds from american universities; i'm black so that's why i make the jokes about colonialism/race that i do. title from fall, universe mini + bad dream is the official soundtrack for this.

“Okay,” Jongin says. “I still don’t get what this has to do with me.”

“Jongin,” Minseok complains, leaning further into the doorframe of Jongin’s office, tapping his fingers on the deep wood of the door. “You know what department politics are like.”

“But it’s not even my department, hyung,” Jongin reminds him. “Why should I have to attend a lecture for the history department when we’re in lit? Or why not ask, uh,” he struggles for a moment to remember who his other colleagues are, “Baekhyun if he wants to go? He’s all, like… interdisciplinary.” Jongin nods. Yes, Baekhyun is a much better fit.

“Humanities and arts politics, then. We get more money if we seem like we’re engaging in interdepartmental events, and to get there, we have to actually acknowledge the other departments. Would you rather we deal with philosophy?”

Jongin feels the back of his neck prickle. “I’d rather die.”

Minseok nods in agreement. “History is our best bet. We like them! Right?” He pauses. “Most of them.”

“Baekhyun was a history minor,” Jongin offers.

“Baekhyun is already coming.” He taps his sneakered feet on the large black rug that spans much of Jongin’s office. “You know who might not come? Next semester’s adjunct lecturer. I wonder who will teach freshmen year writing then…”

Jongin feels hurt. “You’d use university corruption against me like this, hyung?” If he teaches freshmen composition, then he will _be_ hurt. 

Minseok smiles. Jongin loves his department chair, he really does, but he is very manipulative. He knows that Minseok chooses history because he is dating history’s chair, Kim Junmyeon, but he leaves that for another time. Minseok already won today. 

“Excellent!” Minseok says. The disappointment is heavy in Jongin’s face. “It’s just across the street in Jang Auditorium, I’ll come get you quarter to five so we can walk over early for good seats.”

“I hate good seats,” Jongin grumbles. Good seats mean he must stay the entire lecture; he is an avowed advocate of back row corner seats. He knows the exits for almost every lecture room on campus.

“There will be refreshments,” Minseok adds. 

“Oh, well, _hyung_ ,” Jongin says, sitting up in his desk and grinning at his colleague, “why didn’t you just _say_. I’ll see you soon! Let’s get there half an hour early just to be safe.”

Minseok laughs, taps his hands once more, and leaves.

-

Jongin, of course, attended a few of the history department’s talks before, but a vast majority of those were when he was trying to get tenure and needed the face exposure at arts events. God, he even attended social sciences lectures, and social science faculty are so _pretentious_. The history department is also pretentious, but their job outlook humbles them the same it does the literature department, so Jongin can better tolerate them.

But since Jongin is creative writing rather than, like, actual literature and theory, he requires less overlap with history. Sure, he enjoyed it in high school, and sure, his students might write better stories and essays if they read more history and books in general. Still, like he argued to Minseok, there are much better fits for interdepartmental bonding. Baekhyun loves history, loves “context and historical understandings of literature,” and even though Amber is also creative writing, she cares about author's intent, whatever that might mean, for whatever crazy reason, so she’s also big on context. Jongin doesn’t _care_ about context. Or, well, he does, but he writes gay lit, and he doesn’t need more sadness fodder. He does love a good documentary, he must say. He may quit to watch documentaries full time. 

When he reaches Minseok’s office, the door is cracked open, just a sliver of warm light escaping. He knocks. 

“Come in!” someone says, a non-Minseok someone, and Jongin sighs when he enters and closes the door behind him. He hates cracked doors. 

“I thought Minseokie hyung was lying about you going,” Jongin greets Baekhyun, a poke at the back of his neck in affection. Minseok’s office is so big, clean and neat, two comfy beige chaises in the corner with his bookshelves. The full setup is beige and tan and just a little accented deep brown, so it is always light, airy, appears even bigger than it already is. 

Minseok leans back in his desk chair, legs crossed, Baekhyun sprawled sideways on one of the chaises, head tilted to squint at Jongin above him. Baekhyun hums. “To force you to go?” Jongin nods. “Oh, don’t nod, it’s overwhelming from this angle! There will be free food.”

“Wait,” Jongin says, “refreshments or _food_? Are we talking fork and knife, maybe pizza, or just small pieces of bread and grapes with cheap sparkling water?”

“Well, Yixing told me they want graduate students to actually show up, so they promised a luncheon.” Baekhyun grins. “A _luncheon_ ,” stressing each syllable. 

“Fuck,” Jongin says. “Why are you just sitting here! Let’s go!”

Minseok rolls his eyes and sighs, but don’t think Jongin doesn’t see how quickly he prepares him. Tenured chair salary will never outweigh food paid for by the university. 

The walk is quick and quiet, Baekhyun humming to himself and Minseok glaring at cars that don’t give them immediate right of way. It really is just across the street, Jang Auditorium the preferred lecture hall for most humanities and arts events, and because they arrive so early, it’s mostly just history department faculty and grads milling about in front of the food tables in the wide room before the actual lecture hall. 

“Sandwiches,” Jongin whisper-exclaims, “salad!” Salad is hit or miss, but from afar, this one looks full and hearty. The sandwiches are definitely a handful. _And_ there’s hummus with little blocks of cheese and tiny breads. Appetizers and a meal? God, imagine if Jongin hadn’t come. 

“Told you,” Minseok says, smug. “Interdepartmental gets you the good stuff.”

“How do I get the food and get out,” Jongin asks Baekhyun, and he does ask quietly, relative quiet, but he still panics a little when Minseok elbows him in the side and draws his attention to where Junmyeon and another man of similar height to Junmyeon stand in front of them. “Oh, it’s just you,” Jongin dismisses, “I thought I was getting elbowed for saying that in front of someone important in these circles.” 

Baekhyun laughs, throwing an arm around Jongin’s waist and leaning his head on his shoulder. “Dr. Kim,” rephrasing when Jongin and Minseok perk up in instinctive name recognition, “the important Dr. Kim—when you’re dean, please remember that I only speak to him because I couldn’t convince the college to give me history tenure with a lit degree. I think you do _very_ important work.”

“Yah, stop batting your lashes at him,” Minseok complains, Baekhyun cackling loudly when Jongin pushes him off and away. 

Junmyeon rolls his eyes, but his face brightens with mirth and laughter. “Last week, when I asked if you’d consider cross-listing Medieval Korean Lit with the history department, you said you’d rather die than do extra reading and deal with our history students.”

“They ask questions!” Baekhyun defends. “All the boys ever care about is war and politics, so the questions aren’t even good!” 

“It was one student one time,” says Junmyeon. 

“I’m very good at making brash generalizations,” Baekhyun assures him. “Anyway, I _am_ going to cross list and read all your stupid extra books, so stop complaining.”

“You’ve already read them, you dramatic child,” Minseok reminds him. 

“The implication that Baekhyun reads is astounding,” Jongin says. 

“The implication that Baekhyun _can_ read,” the new man adds quietly, drawing Jongin’s attention to him just in time to see his lips quirk with an incremental twitch. 

Jongin sees him in passing once or twice around the building, usually in the downstairs cafe when Jongin drags himself over for morning carbs and a banana he avoids eating in front of students for obvious prideful reasons, but recognition is otherwise low. He is—handsome. A timeless handsome, like his face makes sense on a billboard or as the star of a Joseon-era drama. This close, there’s a solid weight to him that makes him seem bigger than he is, something illusive like professionalism or poise. Jongin has no idea what those things are. 

_Timeless handsome_ , Jongin thinks again with an internal snort. He’s so pretentious. This guy is hot. Capital H Hot. His lips are so... there. Visibly there. Existing, and doing it so well.

“Shut up, Kyungsoo, have some respect for your elders,” Baekhyun snaps, but there’s too much whine in his voice for real bite. 

Jongin doesn’t realize he’s still staring until—Kyungsoo? Kyungsoo catches his eye and then just...looks him over. A clear, unsubtle up and down of Jongin’s body, and he notices when Kyungsoo’s gaze spends more time than excusable on his neck, on his lips. 

_Oh_ , he thinks, his ears burning hot. 

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Kyungsoo asks Junmyeon. 

“To wh—oh! Jongin, right.” Jongin scowls at Junmyeon. “Right, right, well,” he motions to Jongin, “Kyungsoo, this is Dr. Kim Jongin of the Literature and Languages department, MFA and PhD from, uh...was it Berkeley?” Jongin nods. “He does...a thing?”

“Yah,” Jongin complains while Baekhyun and Minseok crack up on either side of him. “I do multiple things!” He turns to Kyungsoo and pretends he’s a professional adult, adds, “I mostly write and teach fiction, but I’m broadly interested in cultural manifestations, uh, constructions, of sex and sexuality, family and gender, and their relationships to place and, uh, space, landscape, the whole thing.” He nods. “Multiple things.”

“His first story collection won the Yi Sang for fiction,” Minseok brags. 

“It was a slow year,” says Jongin, “all the actual writers were on sabbatical.” 

“Jongin-ssi,” Minseok says, “don’t make me hit you.”

“Self-deprecation isn’t attractive at your age,” Junmyeon agrees. Then he does the same hand motion to Kyungsoo, before patting his hand on Kyungsoo’s shoulder, “and this, Jongin, is Dr. Do Kyungsoo, known Marxist, dangerous commie, hostile anti-American agitator—” He laughs and yelps away when Kyungsoo pinches his side, hard, but defends himself, “you have a shrine in your office!”

“I have an artistic rendering of the leaders of the countercultural movements in the United States during the long ‘68,” Do Kyungsoo tells Jongin. 

“Who says “the long ‘68,” oh my god,” Baekhyun laughs. 

“You have, what is it, four of these artistic renderings?” Junmyeon tells Jongin, “the other three are, of course, of very militant Third World Marxists.”

“3, 2…” Baekhyun fake-whispers. 

“I won’t be baited,” Kyungsoo says.

“Kyungsoo-ssi is especially interested in tracing the revolutionary habits of the,” Junmyeon clears his throat, “Far East, and how they influenced and were influenced by other, uh, what was it, global subaltern revolutions. Or does he hate colonial more?” Junmyeon asks Baekhyun.

“I think he _loves_ colonial, don’t you, Kyungsoo-ah,” Baekhyun grins. 

“Fuck you,” Kyungsoo says with passion. His gaze doesn’t leave Jongin’s, hasn’t for more than seconds at a time since introductions began. His eyes are dark and big, and the growing exasperation in them as his colleagues bait him includes Jongin in the banter even as some of it flies above his head. “Third World and Far East are both racist terms meant to orient the rest of the world in subversive relationship to Europe—”

“Ooh, not _orient_ ,” Minseok gasps.

“—and you _know_ I hate the term colonial. Somehow, though, not as much as I hate all three of you.” 

“Kyungsoo jerks off to grainy photographs of Said and Fanon,” Baekhyun tells Jongin. 

Kyungsoo sighs. “We are in public.”

“Note that he doesn’t deny it,” Junmyeon says. 

“You are adults,” Kyungsoo says, “You are adult appearing. You are supposed to inspire young minds. Try inspiring your own.”

“He always gets feisty when he inevitably brings up racism in the first five minutes of new acquaintance.”

Jongin… doesn’t know how to respond to this. “Uh, I think there’s a lot for me to unpack there.”

Baekhyun _cackles_. Kyungsoo rolls his eyes, but his face betrays his warmth and amusement. “Junmyeon wasn’t technically wrong, he just chooses incendiary language to rile me up.” He pauses. “I’m not… _not_ a dangerous commie.” He grins, then, laughing just a little, and Jongin, in that exact moment, gets a crush so sudden and blinding that he forgets to breathe. 

“I would love to hear more about your work later, uh, Kyungsoo-ssi, or hyung? I don’t know what you’d prefer.” He knows hyung is too intimate for a first meeting in a professional standing, but he hopes it makes it clear that he intends, in some way or form, to know Kyungsoo more, get acquainted enough that the less formal title makes sense. 

Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow, and _checks Jongin out again_. “Either is fine, Jongin. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He shifts weight to his other leg. “I have read your work, by the way, and it was more than deserving of all the many accolades it received.”

Jongin could moan. Jongin will moan. “Oh,” he breathes, eyes widening like he’s seventeen again and overwhelmed by the mildest compliment from a cute boy. “Really?” Kyungsoo just smirks, a split second of cocksure amusement, before schooling his face back into careful appraisal. He nods. 

“If you two are done flirting,” Baekhyun interrupts, “the lecture starts in fifteen minutes and my tummy is still empty.”

On pure instinct alone, Jongin protests, “I wasn’t flirting.”

“Oh,” promises Kyungsoo, quiet confidence when he meets Jongin’s eyes, “I was.” And then he just walks away. Walks away!

“What,” Jongin says. Junmyeon flashes him a quick grin before turning to follow his friend and colleague. 

“Kyungsoo’s just like that,” Baekhyun says. “He likes pretending he’s not dramatic despite being the most dramatic person in any room.”

Jongin is at least a little turned on.

-

The next time he meets Kyungsoo, it is on the first floor cafe of their building. They close at four thirty PM, but the last two hours of operation promise half-off pastries and sometimes real food, too. Jongin is in line with a to-go bowl of bibimbap, a double chocolate muffin, and a bottle of Coke—in the words of the esteemed scholars before him, he is here for a good time, not a long time—when a kind of familiar voice says, “Jongin, hello,” and someone steals a light grip of his elbow. The touch is gone before it registers through the brown elbow patches on his white cardigan, but he turns around enough to notice Do Kyungsoo. 

“Oh, Professor Do, it’s very nice to see you again. How are you?”

“Professor,” Kyungsoo laughs, “Jongin, you’re not one of my students.”

The joke is almost too easy. “But I’m sure you have a lot to teach me,” he says with a low voice, sure that no one hears but Kyungsoo. His turn at the till comes up, but he is conscious of Kyungsoo behind him; he waits for Kyungsoo to pay as well and looks to him with his brown paper bag lunch cradled to his chest. “D’ya wanna have lunch together?”

Kyungsoo smiles. “I’d love nothing more.”

They find a table along a glass window near a corner. There’s a garden outside, planted partly with evergreen plants that maintain their beauty despite the encroaching brown of fall. 

“So,” Jongin says. He takes out his rice and cola, biting the plastic spoon before his teeth as he removes the bowl’s cover and soda cap. His muffin will wait for dessert. He looks at Kyungsoo under his eyelashes. 

“So,” Kyungsoo agrees. He smiles. He has a sandwich, it might be a a hamburger, and a tall bottle of water next to a bag of chips. “How are you, Jongin? I’d love to hear more about you outside of,” he waves his hand, “the dramatics of our colleagues.”

“Baekhyun told me you can also be dramatic.”

Kyungsoo laughs. “Sure, I suppose. Much of it is relative to context.”

“Right, like all things. What are your contexts?”

“I asked a question first,” says Kyungsoo. He takes a bite of his sandwich. God, even how he eats is hot. 

“There isn’t that much to me,” Jongin starts. He pushes zucchini away, spooning more carrot strings and beef. He wants more gochujang, but he’s too lazy to get up.

“See, now I know you’re fucking with me,” says Kyungsoo. “The Yi Sang isn’t an attendance prize or consolation award. Your story collection was incredible.”

“It was depressing,” Jongin says. “There were no happy endings.” He stuffs a huge bite of food into his mouth. God, he loves rice.

“The endings were real. Life doesn’t give us fairytale endings, it gives us the truth, however ambiguous or unpleasant that truth is.”

Jongin snorts. “Okay, Foucault.”

Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow. He sips water. “Weak Foucault, he didn’t believe in truth.”

“Nuh-uh,” Jongin disagrees, “he so did. He was a _historian_. You’re a historian. Surely you believe in _some_ truths.”

“Everything is interpretation,” Kyungsoo says ominously. In a bout of bravery, Jongin nips a chip from Kyungsoo’s bag. Jalapeño. Huh. Kyungsoo tilts the bag closer to him. “Have some, they’re great.” Jongin has another. 

“D’ya want rice, hyung?” In response, Kyungsoo leans forward on his elbows and opens his mouth. Jongin tries not to smile when he puts a spoonful into Kyungsoo’s mouth, and braces his palm under Kyungsoo’s mouth to catch the few grains that spill out. Behind the mumble of a full mouth, Kyungsoo says something that sounds like _thank you_. “Lived experiences go beyond the theoretical abstract, though, right?” Kyungsoo says nothing, but tilts his head, _go on_ , when Jongin hesitates. “I mean—it’s easy for us to sit and debate what truths are real, but reality, the rising and setting of the sun, the billions of people who think this or that or all of it to be true—what good is theory for life outside academia?”

Kyungsoo gets through a few bites of his burger before he answers. They eat in silence. Jongin likes that, the thoughtful look on Kyungsoo’s face, the easy quiet at their table despite the bustle of the cafe around them. 

“Often not at all,” Kyungsoo settles on. “But then that might assume that theoretical abstractions don’t draw from the lived experiences of their thinkers. Derrida was a colonial, Foucault was gay. The mind and body move together.”

Jongin hums in consideration. He checks his watch; thirty minutes before his graduate writing seminar. His students begin workshop, and that is Jongin’s favorite point in the semester. 

Kyungsoo continues, “sometimes theory becomes real life.” He swigs from his water. His lips are wet. “Like, uh—Marx. His work.”

“Maybe theory is the thing, soulless, vampire-like, sucking the souls of all who encounter it,” Jongin grins. His mouth is half-full with food.

“I think you’re gorgeous,” Kyungsoo says out of the blue. 

“What, because I referenced Capital?” Baekhyun was right. Jongin hates that. He loves how dramatic the hint of Kyungsoo he sees is, the best part of it his neutral face all through. 

Kyungsoo flashes a quick grin. “Only part of it.” He is honest and serious when he adds, “I just think, know that you’re gorgeous. At the lecture last week, I couldn’t stop staring. You’re stunning.”

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin begins. What can he say? _I feel like I’ve always known you. Like we just picked up an old conversation_. Jongin falters, mouth open and shut. His face is warm. Kyungsoo smirks, a small, knowing thing.

Kyungsoo opens his mouth to speak, but Jongin catches his thoughts before he can. “I want to kiss you,” Jongin tells him. It is Kyungsoo who falters now, total loss for words. 

Jongin grins, tongue between his teeth. “Which of my stories was your favorite?” His rice is almost done, and he needs to prepare his materials for workshop. 

Kyungsoo takes a long drink from his water. He puts it down. He licks his lips. “You fishing, Dr. Kim?” Jongin needs to look away from his lips, but that is much easier said than done.

“Yes,” Jongin admits. “But I’ve gotta go now, class in fifteen. Which do you think is my favorite?” He pushes his chair back and stands up, brown paper bag with his muffin, two fingers gripping his bottle of Coke at the cap. “I’m on the seventh floor of our building, in 721, end of the hall on on the left.” He runs his free hand through his hair. “You might stop by, sometime?”

Kyungsoo nods. His eye are bright. “I will. Have a nice day, Jongin-ssi.” Jongin nods, flashes Kyungsoo another smile, and leaves.

-

 _I think…….I’m in love_ , Jongin texts Baekhyun after his class. 

_Ik_ , Baekhyun answers.  
_I think his dick is above par_

_ok 1 how would u know who I’m talking abt  
2 I don’t want to know what contact you’ve had with his dick. Don’t look at him _

_He told me u guys had lunch ^^_  
He’s my friend! in a platonic sense ^^  
Sometimes when he’s drunk he gets cocky ^^ 

_He brags?_ Jongin can’t imagine it. Or maybe he can—the suave lift of Kyungsoo’s eyebrow, the quick smirks. 

_Not really but_  
He had a uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’nnn slutty phase a few years back  
And I mean that in a loving feminist way  
And those ppl r still needy about him it’s crazy  
It’s worse bc he’s like “I hope I didn’t lead them on:/” and me and yeol are like o….ok….what’s ur dick size  
And then he ignores us for a week  
They’re dick drunk Jonginnie 

_I see_ , Jongin replies. He will die.

 _:)_ , Baekhyun says. _His office is 523._

_Funny you’d think I don’t already know_

Jongin is on the history department’s site right now, reading Kyungsoo’s faculty profile. Humanities building, 523. Comparative Korean history, social and political history, history of revolutions and counterculture. 

_HE WENT TO HARVARD?_

_Ya w Yeollir_  
*yeollie  
He is an Actual genius. Met him while I was at BU thru Chanyeol 

_I always forget chanyeol is smart_

_Ikr_  
Kyungsoo was head of the grad student union  
He likes chipotle  
He’s not crazy about peanut butter. He loves jjajangmyeon n soybean anything 

_Peanut butter is terrible. Hes right_

_He finished his PhD in 4 yrs instead of the standard 5 bc verbatim “If I have to play nice w another one of these white professors for another year I’m gonna burn the library and default my degree”_  
He threatened to burn the library a lot  
We’d be like ‘ok so….how do u expect to increase knowledge w/out books or primary docs’  
Him: everything is interpretation 

Kyungsoo’s first book looks at the role Asian Americans or Asians living in America played during the countercultural movements of the sixties and seventies, and the unclear and often shifting markers of solidarity between marginalized Americans. What the fuck. What the fuck. Jongin barely understands what the synopsis means. Reading the awards and accolades on Kyungsoo’s CV gives Jongin a headache. 

_So you were just never going to introduce him to me?_

_Oh he’s typing in full sentences :o_  
Fraternizing between employers is not recommended  
*enoloyees ew I’d never be a capitalist  
*EMPLYESS  
Employees. 

_You sucked yixing off last week and told me in graphic detail_

_Fraternizing between non-me employees isnot recommended_  
Also you never came out when I invited u  
I know ur histype but againyiu always ignore my invitations 

_Not ALWAYS_  
I just like being home. I pay my rent I should enjoy it  
How am I his type? 

_He likes bottoms  
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHA_

_This is not appropriate conversation between colleagues_ , Jongin replies. He has to stop talking or moving for a while. The visuals are too much.

He is no less overwhelmed when he gets a knock on the door a few hours later. Actual progress: he edited this week’s batch of short stories, had a smoothie to tide him over until dinner, wrote 1500 words in an hour. This is good. He was unproductive for days. 

Annoyance piques at the interruption, but it and his breath dissipate when he opens the door to Kyungsoo. A long black coat overlays the earlier simple combination of a white button-up with black slacks; he appears longer than he is. A black backpack hangs over his shoulder. 

“Kyungsoo-ssi,” Jongin greets. 

“Hello, Dr. Kim,” Kyungsoo replies. There are—he—black glasses frame his eyes, and they make his already-honest face even more earnest, big eyes clear and relaxed without strain. Kyungsoo asks if he may come in, and Jongin steps aside so he can, eyes still glued to Kyungsoo’s face. Somehow he ends up in his desk chair, Kyungsoo sitting across from him with his backpack on his lap. “How are you?”

“Much better now that you’re here,” he says. He doesn’t know how much of it is a joke. 

“You're very flirty,” Kyungsoo notes. 

Jongin shakes his head. He closes his laptop. “I’m not, not really. I just,” he shrugs. “I want you, and I won’t play at coy if you want me, too.”

Kyungsoo’s voice is deeper than usual when he says, “I do want you.”

Jongin's breath hitches. “Okay,” he finally says. 

“Okay,” Kyungsoo repeats. He licks his lips. God, the curve of them. “I liked Death with Dignity a lot.”

Oh. Right. His favorite story. Jongin’s face scrunches. “I hate it. It’s one of the worst stories in the collection.”

“Why?” 

“It’s—it falls flat. There isn’t enough felt tension for a situation as tense as theirs, sometimes I forget the main character’s name, that’s how forgettable he is. The ending is underwhelming.”

“The ending is _perfect_ ,” Kyungsoo argues. “Taejon—and that is his name, in case you forgot again—would never forgive so easily. The power of the ending lies in the hope, the possibility for reconciliation, without compromising the characterization to force on a _deux ex machina_ moment. Eight years of hurt cannot be fixed in a weekend.”

“What characterization? He’s exactly the same as every other character I’ve ever done.”

“There are six other stories in the collection.”

“I like the number seven,” says Jongin, unsure what the point is. 

“Taejon is nothing like any of them. Except in the ways that matter, maybe, like the imbalance between self and family, self and society, the complexities and messiness of human emotion and experience.” Kyungsoo shifts in the overstuffed leather chaise. His legs spread wider. “Taejon is recognizable for the reader. It’s like—who amongst us can cast the first stone?” He places his backpack on the chair next to him. “Maybe you hate him because he forces you to think about how you’d react in the same circumstances.”

“Very poorly,” Jongin admits. Death with Dignity is lesser known. It’s fifth in the collection, and the fourth and seventh stories catapulted Jongin into national recognition and tenure. 

“It is easier to hate the things we know,” says Kyungsoo. “When was the last time you read it?”

“Months,” Jongin answers. “It is a frustrating read. I was in a weird place when I wrote it.”

“Are you better now?” 

Jongin nods. He smiles. “I am.” 

“Then revisit it, Jongin. Think of me when you do, and maybe you’ll see why it’s my favorite.”

“Lately, I’ve thought about you whatever it is I’m doing,” Jongin says. He watches Kyungsoo’s face, and his heart tightens when Kyungsoo’s eyes lower and he licks his lips. Kyungsoo’s legs spread further. 

God, Jongin wants to sit on his lap. 

“If you want to,” Kyungsoo starts, cautious, “you can lock your door and come sit in my lap. I’d like that, if you will too.”

Jongin probably moves faster than ever before in his life. When he straddles Kyungsoo’s thighs, his knees digging into the chaise on either side of Kyungsoo’s legs, his face is red-hot and his heart beats an overwhelmed pattern. He loves this. “This is a strange start to intimacy.”

Kyungsoo runs his palms over Jongin’s thighs. “You stare every time I stretch or spread my legs.”

“Your thighs are incredible.” Then, because Kyungsoo set him up for it, “there are plenty of other things you could’ve asked me to do between your legs.”

Kyungsoo huffs out a laugh, a soft, beautiful thing. He leans back in the chaise, hands spread over Jongin’s thighs. “C’mere.” Jongin scoots in. “You still wanna kiss me?”

Instead of wasting time with a reply, Jongin angles his head down and presses his lips to Kyungsoo’s. His own lips are a bit chapped, but Kyungsoo has the smoothest and plushest lips Jongin ever knew. The tilt of mouth against mouth, chaste and sweet, is enough to ignite a slow burn in Jongin’s body. What is better than this? What could be?

They pull back to inhale and exhale, slow and deep. Jongin takes off Kyungsoo’s glasses. When he moves back in, Kyungsoo takes his bottom lip between his teeth and sucks until Jongin moans, until he slides his tongue into Kyungsoo’s mouth. Kissing him is a dream. His tongue is so soft and warm, a gentle curl forward, and Kyungsoo gives all he has. Jongin melts. He loses all tension in his body when Kyungsoo drags a hand up to cup his jaw, strong hands tender yet taming. Kissing him is everything. New, yet so familiar. 

God knows how long they kiss. This is Jongin’s longest first kiss. Can it be a first kiss? This is the continuation of something he must’ve always known. 

Ugh. If Minseok heard him, how sappy and stupid he is, he would laugh. A good kiss can’t mean this much, but Jongin is a romantic, and he cannot change that. 

When they break apart for good, Jongin’s lips hurt and Kyungsoo’s are swollen red. Oh, God. “I feel like I know you,” Jongin murmurs. He hopes that is not creepy. He hopes Kyungsoo understands, that he gets it. 

Kyungsoo smiles. “I’m yours to know.” He gets it. 

-

A few weeks later, when Jongin barges into Baekhyun’s office at nine AM and announces again, “I think… I’m in love?” he is unsure how much is dramatics. 

“Oh, word,” Baekhyun says, leaning back in his office chair with his legs on his desk as he throws and catches a stress ball into the air. “Did your first boyfriend take your virginity last night?” Jongin slams the door shut. Graduate students are always listening. 

“He’s not my first boyfriend,” he says, walking further in and slapping Baekhyun's calf. He sits on the edge of his desk. All he has is the edge—there are papers strewn all over, and a haphazard stack of books that Baekhyun should read but probably will only skim the first five pages of. Jongin has the same set-up. “We’re not even boyfriends. Just dating.”

“You two sure act like it,” Baekhyun snorts. “To be young and in love.”

“Have you ever met yourself when Yixing is around?”

“Yixing is literally my husband!” Baekhyun protests. “If I don’t climb him like a tree at every moment, then who will! Maybe that’s why you can’t keep a man,” Baekhyun says, and moves his legs away with a Yelp when Jongin punches him hard. “Yah! I’m your elder!”

Jongin rolls his eyes. “In age alone.” He huffs. “You don’t get it. He’s too ideal. We went on a date yesterday.”

“I know, you texted me emojis all evening,” Baekhyun says. 

“We saw a historical movie in theaters, and he spent all of dinner complaining about the inaccuracies. He ordered chicken and switched plates with me when I picked at my stew,” Jongin sighs. “A man who loves complaining and gives me chicken. What else might I need?”

“You never like it when I point out historical inaccuracies,” Baekhyun grumbles. 

“You don’t fuck me right against the door of my apartment,” Jongin says. 

“Wait.” Baekhyun pauses the stress ball exercises. “You _did_ lose your virginity?”

“I loathe you,” Jongin says. “But in a much realer sense… maybe you’re right. I’ve never been fucked like that before.”

“I told you! Above par!”

“It’s so—he’s so—how,” Jongin fumbles. “Hyung, I’m still sore!”

“Ooh, that’s good,” Baekhyun nods. “Ugh, I love being right about things. I knew Kyungsoo wasn’t slutty in vain.” He pauses. “Although of course pointless sluttiness is important too. And he wasn’t slutty per se, just—experimenting. Finishing the final touches of youth. Sluttiness can be empowerment.”

“Back to me,” Jongin says. “I am ruined for all other men, women, and non-binary partners.”

Baekhyun grins. He does have nice teeth, Jongin will give him that. “Use protection.”

Jongin shuts his mouth. He blushes. 

“Jongin!” Baekhyun exclaims. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I know!”

“You’re such a whore!” Baekhyun exclaims. 

“Weren’t you just preaching sex liberation,” Jongin complains. 

“That was before I knew you were a whore!”

“Lower your voice,” Jongin hisses. 

“Oh my God.” Baekhyun throws the stress ball at Jongin. It flops pathetically onto the desk. “Now you have to marry him. You could be pregnant.”

Jongin has much better aim when he throws the stress ball back into Baekhyun’s face. 

-

_:~(_

_Yeah?_

_:-[_

_What does this mean?_

_: &/_

_Is that you?_

_:@_

_I miss you too baby_

_Teach your dick how to text_ , Jongin sends. It’s Saturday, and they spent the past several Saturdays together, but this weekend Kyungsoo is in Busan for a lecture on the radical student protests of the democratizing 1980s. Kyungsoo is so smart, but Jongin hates when he’s smart away from him. He loafs around his house, opening and banging cabinets. He flossed for five minutes earlier. He ate packet ramyeon. He flossed again. He read an article Junmyeon and Chanyeol both bugged him to read, since apparently he takes orders from history nerds now. He watched the second season of Stranger Things, then went around making sure all his windows are locked. He had strawberry milk. He had a few beers. Now, he slouches on his sofa, body stretched lengthwise.

_Who do you think sent the miss you text?_

_Wish I could give it a kiss_  
Just for comfort yknow  
A little oeck  
*peck 

_Hm, no ones better at kissing it than you.  
I wish that I was shoving it down your throat and making you choke_

Jongin shifts. 

_No! We’re not doingthat  
M too lazy to Jack off_

_You could finger yourself_ , Kyungsoo offers, ever so gracious. _Maybe send me picture to make it productive._

_Ur the worst_  
Do  
Wanna suck u tho 

_Tuesday_ , Kyungsoo promises.  
_Give you all the dick you want on Tuesday_

_> :0  
Are we dating _

_Jongin it’s been two months_

_No I mean like  
Are you my boyfriend _

_Jongin it’s been two months_

_Say it or  
Block my number_

_I’m your boyfriend_

_Okay:-)_  
I need u to tell baek to stop calling me a whore for liking it bare  
We got tested  
After the third time  
And ur my boyfriend  
To be fair second and third were two hours apart  
Omg. I miss ur dick 

_What are you going through?  
How much did you drink?_

_All of it_  
Just a little  
Do u like me 

_I thought we established that I’m your boyfriend_

_Yeah but like………………………….I’m a much realer sense……………………_  
*in  
In a MUCH much realer sense 

_Justify this_

_I gotta know_  
When we get married I’m still gonna ask u  
We’ll he boarding the flight or our honeymoon to Cuba so I can get sun and u can be closer to communism without dying in the North and I’ll be like “:-( Mr Kim...do u like me:-(“ 

_There’s too much for me to digest in that. There is just an essay waiting_

_You think everything is an essay waiting. We missed our train to Kwangju and you were like “is this a metaphor for the missed opportunities of a full people’s democracy like we saw in 82” and I’m like on the phone with the train vendor like Hello? We missed our train_

Kyungsoo is so good at parsing out Jongin's nonsense. _When we get married?_

_You fuck me without protection  
I might be pregnant _

_Oh my God_

_You can’t fuck me bare and not marry me_  
I’m thinking ahead  
Keep up 

_I see.  
is that a kink?_

_I have no kinks, I lost my virginity to you and now I’m probably pregnant :(_

_You want me to fuck cum into you until you’re full up and your hole is swollen?_

Jongin’s breath hitches. _You’re the pest_  
Worst  
Both work

 _^^_ , Kyungsoo sends. 

_STOP IGNORING THE QUESTION  
so do you NOT like me_

Kyungsoo sends the eye-roll emoji. Then, because he is the softest, _I like you a lot._

_I like you most_

_Not more than me._

Because Jongin is a renowned scholar, he sends, _Don’t be gay_

_Hate to be the one to break the news, baby, but…_

Jongin cackles. Kyungsoo is the funniest person. _You’re so funny_

Kyungsoo sends the emoji with hearts around its face. _Gotta go, text me later ok? Miss you. Tuesday_

 _Tuesday_ , Jongin agrees.

-

“I wish you knew how you look right now,” Kyungsoo says softly, curling a strand of hair behind Jongin’s ear, tracing his thumb around the shell of his ear.

“Tell me,” Jongin says. He looks up from where he kneels between Kyungsoo’s thighs, Kyungsoo comfortable and regal in the plush black of his desk chair. It’s nearing eight PM, dark and warm inside Kyungsoo’s office despite the dropping temperatures outside. Jongin hurried over here when he finished his last class, a heavy paper bag from the dining cafeteria in his hand, thankful that the hallway was empty and he and Kyungsoo could enjoy their high-carb, low-health pizza lunch together. Jongin doesn’t know the exact progression from dinner to Kyungsoo excitedly outlining an article he found while half heartedly JSTOR browsing to now, Jongin on the floor, his hand resting close on the softness of Kyungsoo’s inner thighs. He doesn’t know, but it feels good, right, a natural progression. 

“Easy,” Kyungsoo says. He rubs Jongin’s bottom lip, mouth curling up when Jongin flicks his tongue out to wet Kyungsoo’s thumb. 

Warmth, everywhere, and Jongin can look nowhere but up. “I am easy for you, hyung.” He angles his mouth so he can suck Kyungsoo’s thumb into his mouth. Kyungsoo’s eyes darken. 

“You gonna suck me, baby?” 

He can’t undo the button of Kyungsoo’s black slacks fast enough, raises the material a bit so he can unzip without catching on Kyungsoo’s boxers or skin. Kyungsoo’s not hard yet when Jongin pulls his black boxer-briefs under his balls, snug without being uncomfortable, but Jongin doesn’t care. His mouth waters, pooled with spit up to his teeth just from the sight, from the idea of it, the knowledge that this is something he can have, something he has. God, he waxes poetic about Kyungsoo’s dick. He swallows.

“I will wax poetic about your dick,” he tells Kyungsoo, peeking up for just a second to glance at the angled line of Kyungsoo’s sharp jaw. 

“Good thing you’re such a renowned writer,” says Kyungsoo, “you’ll do a great job.” He pauses, adjusts himself in his plush leather-brown desk chair—it’s the softest and most worn-down thing in this office, other than maybe his copies of Marx’s Capital and Said’s Orientalism, and Jongin likes him so _much_. “Do a better job with it in your mouth, though.”

“Oh, to create is to do?” Jongin grins. “Or,” he continues, leaning in close to Kyungsoo’s dick, exhaling on the skin and grinning wider when Kyungsoo’s thigh flexes with the tease, “rather to do is to create. I suck you off, and I win a Nobel for Literature?”

Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow. Jongin can’t look away from him. He knows this is exactly Kyungsoo’s sense of humor, dick jokes about intelligentsia and the academy, but Kyungsoo wouldn’t be himself if he couldn’t turn his emotional indicators off at a second’s notice. It’s a wonder that he still manages to make Jongin feel—noteworthy, even when his face is blank and his dick is still soft. 

“Baby,” Kyungsoo starts. Change in register of his voice. Lower, now, deeper, an edge that has Jongin’s mouth pooling with spit again. Oh, God, he’s going to get his mouth fucked. He’s almost afraid of what Kyungsoo will say, and he wants nothing more than to know. “Don’t you wanna be good for me?”

Jongin could melt. He nods. Silence. “I do,” he breathes. 

“Should I have to tell you twice?” Jongin shakes his head. “Three times?” Jongin shakes his head. “Then why isn’t it down your throat yet?” Jongin does, then, melt. 

He doesn’t mind when Kyungsoo is still soft at the beginning of a blowjob or handjob because it means he can watch him stretch under his palm or swell in his mouth. Sometimes it’s sudden, like Kyungsoo only needed the barest stimulation. Other times, like now, Jongin puts the work in, gently licking at the warm skin before mouthing it inside. He lets it sit there, resting his cheek on Kyungsoo’s thigh and closing his eyes as he sucks on Kyungsoo’s cock with the lightest pressure. _How do I look_ , Jongin wants to ask him, _tell me how I look with my mouth warming your cock._

He hopes Kyungsoo remembers the conversation before Jongin went to his knees. _I like to be… told what to do. I like to be taken care of_. His pulse jumping when he managed, _I like it if, when, if you want, to, to… degrade me? Shame me. I like to be humiliated_. Kyungsoo smiled, soft and genuine, and pressed his ring finger into the soft give under Jongin’s right eye. _Do you think I don’t know you’re the prettiest comeslut there is when you’re begging me to come inside?_ In that moment, Jongin didn’t think, point blank. 

Will Kyungsoo remember that now? Live up to it? Jongin makes it so easy when he looks like this, but he wants Kyungsoo to tell him, really, what he looks like. 

“You’re just my own little cocksleeve, aren’t you,” he murmurs, right hand brushing Jongin’s hair away from his forehead. He kneels up so his cheek is no longer on Kyungsoo’s thigh. Kyungsoo’s cock is fattening in Jongin’s mouth, and he loves that he has to move back so that he doesn’t choke, loves the gradual stretch to his jaw as Kyungsoo gets thick and thicker still. “Maybe you should be here always, make Minseok clear out your schedule so I can keep you on your knees, keep my dick warm with your sloppy mouth.”

Jongin’s eyes flutter as he starts to bob his head, just slow movements, uneven and jagged when Kyungsoo calls his mouth sloppy. Is it sloppy? He usually—tries. Tries to what? Show Kyungsoo that he’s not just— 

“You like when I call you sloppy, don’t you?” Kyungsoo is fully hard in his mouth now. Jongin pulls off to take a deep breath. His eyes inevitably look up to look into Kyungsoo’s, and it makes him feel worse. Better? Jongin can’t process that right now, he just wants Kyungsoo’s cock back in his mouth, so he does, sinks his parted lips around the fat head to suck just gently, then messier when it leaks wet onto his tongue. Fuck, yes, he wants that, wants to taste Kyungsoo every time he swallows for hours. Kyungsoo’s face is blank, even as he continues, “I asked you a question, Jongin.” 

Jongin barely hears him, frantically sucking at the tip to get as much precome as he can, overwhelmed by the hot, musky taste and smell of Kyungsoo’s cock on his tongue. What question is more important than this? Knowing that he turns Kyungsoo on so much that he’s dripping, rewarding Jongin with what’s second only to the hot rush of Kyungsoo’s come down his throat. Oh, God, he could come just from this. He’s so hard.

Kyungsoo pushes him off his dick by the forehead. Jongin blinks too fast, hurt, eyes wide as he whines in the back of his throat and tries to lean back in. Kyungsoo holds him back with two fingers right above his eyelid. “What did I ask you?”

What did he… ask? “I, I,” Jongin fumbles, licking his lips and almost moaning at the taste of Kyungsoo on them, “I don’t—” 

Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow, face still so empty. “Maybe that’s my answer, hm? For how much you like it when I call you sloppy. Even your mouth gets so wet for it, your jaw gets too loose.” Jongin flushes. Oh. “But you need to fucking _learn_ ,” a sudden change here, Kyungsoo grabbing his jaw from under his chin, fingers digging too tight into his cheeks, it hurts, it does, his cock pulses in his trousers, he wants to know nothing but this, “to speak when you’re spoken to. Answer my fucking question.” He snaps his hand away so quick it’s whiplash. He relaxes back in his chair. “Or you can just sit there and watch me jerk off until I come on your face. Won’t let you clean up before I kick you out.”

Jongin face gets darker, blood rushing to his cheeks. He loves when Kyungsoo comes on his face, but he really wants it in him. God, he loves when— His gut twists with embarrassment. This is what Kyungsoo means. This is what he means. “I like it when, when you call me sloppy, hyung,” he whispers, running his thumbnail along the inseam of his own thigh. 

Kyungsoo’s face looks warm for a moment. When he murmurs, “good boy,” Jongin’s body _shudders_. 

It feels just as good when Kyungsoo threads his fingers into Jongin’s hair and draws him back in, demanding, “make sure you suck it right this time,” before shoving it halfway into Jongin’s mouth. 

There’s a looseness to Kyungsoo’s gaze as he looks down at Jongin, his legs spread wide so Jongin can get close, take him deeper. Jongin settles into a steady rhythm, eyes shut and bobbing his head on and down Kyungsoo’s length. Jongin loves how he tastes. He doesn’t put all his attention at the head anymore, but whenever he pulls off he makes sure to swipe his tongue over the wet slit, head spinning with desire. He wants to press his palm to his own dick in his slacks, but he wants to devote all of his attention to Kyungsoo more. He’s so hard it hurts, makes him feel lightheaded, but that makes it better. Makes it easy to think _this is all I am, this is all I want_ when the seams of his mouth strain at the stretch. 

“You’re so good,” Kyungsoo sighs, sliding his fingers into the soft hair at the back of his head. Jongin inhales too quickly and moans around Kyungsoo’s dick. “Take more for hyung.” He tugs, light, but it’s not like this is a _request_. Jongin knows better. Jongin is good. Jongin takes more. 

He was barely taking half of it before, but after pulling back to take a deep, rattling breath, resting his hand on Kyungsoo’s knee, shuffling forward even closer on his knees, he goes for it. He restarts his rhythm but takes more of Kyungsoo in with each motion. It’s not like this is his first time sucking Kyungsoo off or even taking him deep, but it always takes time before he can deepthroat him. But with how Kyungsoo looks down at him when Jongin opens his eyes, and the reminding pressure of Kyungsoo’s fingers in his hair, the usual patience seems far gone. 

He pulls off and looks up at Kyungsoo with wide eyes. “Help me,” he begs. He doesn’t want to take too long. He wants Kyungsoo to fuck his mouth. In this moment with this hazy one-track mind, he can’t imagine that he’s ever wanted anything more. 

“Is that how you ask,” Kyungsoo chastises, but instead of giving Jongin time to respond around the disappointment in his gut, he links both his hands through Jongin’s hair and guides him back to his cock. He doesn’t stop guiding him, pushes Jongin’s mouth further down onto his dick even when Jongin’s hands scramble on his knee, the uncomfortable fullness of his mouth too much. “That’s it,” Kyungsoo says, pushing Jongin's head down, “take it just like that. Choke on my cock just like that, baby, make hyung come.” He arches his hips forward until the head is too close to the roof of Jongin’s mouth and his eyes pop in what might be bodily panic as they tear up. He gags. “Take more, I know you can, choke on it if you wanna be good for hyung.” He’s so hard. With help, he messily works his mouth on Kyungsoo’s cock, whining every time it swells in his mouth, every time he gets a pulse of precome on his tongue, every time his loose jaw doesn’t feel loose enough, his—sloppy mouth can’t get enough in to make Kyungsoo groan and press him just that much farther down. 

“Shit,” Kyungsoo grunts, thighs flexing, “you’re just the prettiest little cockwhore, aren’t you, baby?” Jongin’s dick pulses and leaks in his briefs. He moans, the sound coming out wet around the cock in his mouth. “Is this all you were meant for? Is this why you came by, just wanted to end up on your knees for me, dick forced halfway down your throat?” It’s not only halfway when Kyungsoo forces him down to the root, Jongin’s swollen lips scratching on the coarse hair, throat spasming and hurting, choking loud and wet around the head of Kyungsoo’s dick, tears and drool running down his face. “I’d ask you to answer,” Kyungsoo’s voice is softer when he adds, shallow thrusts into Jongin’s throat as Jongin pointlessly sucks in air through his nose, “but I know it gets hard for you when you’re like this.” _Like this?_ “Your little head empties once you’ve got cock in your mouth, hm? Bet it’s tough to focus on anything else.” Shame, hot and heavy, tightens in Jongin’s stomach. What? Oh, no, God, he’s not—“Maybe you’re not thinking with the right head,” Kyungsoo teases, or it could be a tease if his voice wasn’t even and serious, soft, quiet, like Jongin will get overwhelmed if he speaks above a murmur, “maybe you can’t think at all.”

 _Oh my God_ , Jongin thinks, and then, and then—he cannot focus on anything other than Kyungsoo’s words, the tight clutch of his throat around Kyungsoo’s cock, the way his brain wires hot and back to the taste of Kyungsoo inside. His entire universe is this. _Maybe you can’t think at all_. He opens his mouth wider than he thought he could, and cries out when the dick in his mouth fucks that much deeper. It hurts. God, it hurts. The slightest breeze could make him come right now. 

“It’s okay,” Kyungsoo groans, “hyung knows what your whore mouth needs, baby, I know.” Kyungsoo knows. Why should Jongin care that Kyungsoo knows how lightheaded and airy he gets around cock? Kyungsoo knows what to do about it. He fucks Jongin’s—whore mouth relentlessly, there’s no gentleness in the way he forces himself down Jongin’s throat, the slap of his balls loud and embarrassing on Jongin’s chin, but why should he be gentle? All Jongin is, all Jongin wants, is this, here, body floating and weightless on a Tuesday evening in October, two flights of stairs and three doors down from his office, the hazy physical indications of his being: the silky feel of his trousers on his thighs, the throbbing in his temples, the slow drip of tears down his cheeks, the thick press of cock into his throat, the bodily shudder and uncontrollable shaking when Kyungsoo grunts and comes down his throat, tongue, lips, forcing Jongin all the way down his thick cock as his seed spurts in Jongin’s throat..

He fades out, silently sobbing and heaving from overstimulation. Oh, there’s nothing in his throat but the sticky slick of Kyungsoo’s release as he tries to swallow, and that overwhelms him even more. He can’t think. Kyungsoo was right, he can’t think, all he’s good for is choking on cock and being reminded he’s a whore, he’s only… what is he? He doesn’t know why he can’t stop crying. 

“Baby,” he hears, “Jongin, Jongin, Dr. Kim, honey,” and warm hands pulling him up on his lap, gently pressing Jongin’s face into the crook of his neck until his senses stop going haywire and focus only on smell and warmth. “You did so good, you’re so good, come on, you’re doing so good, sweetheart,” hushed and kind with lips pressed to his ear. It’s good that he can feel the shape of the sound, he thinks. Oh, he can breathe. He thinks that’s good.

Slowly, feeling returns. He wiggles his bare toes, shoes discarded hours ago, he remembers that; his arm fell asleep and prickles when he flexes his fingers, his fringe sticks to his forehead; he inhales and exhales in matched tempo to Kyungsoo’s pulse. Oh. Kyungsoo. Jongin sits sideways in his lap. His face is still pressed into Kyungsoo’s neck, and Kyungsoo is still muttering kind and beautiful and reassuring things into Jongin’s ear, like “you’re the best boy, my sweetheart, you did so, so good,” and quiet musings like “if he’s right, then how can decolonization of the mind occur without falling into self-hatred or dissonance… broad to claim natives always want to become…” just as easily murmured over as _you’re the best boy_. Wow, Jongin is so enamored with him. 

“It’s about wanting the power,” Jongin stretches and yawns, his jaw tight with discomfort. “To undo the brutal new into an equal old. Or maybe a level new? Anything going forward has to acknowledge the deadness, too, I think.” He pulls back to look into Kyungsoo’s eyes and blinks. “Hi.”

Kyungsoo is grinning. “Hi, sweetheart.”

“Erghmph,” Jongin complains, poking Kyungsoo’s neck, “no pet names, I need a ten minute break from all names.” 

Kyungsoo’s ears tinge pink. “How do you feel?”

“Fucked,” says Jongin. God, his voice is so hoarse, he barely sounds like himself. Thank goodness he is off tomorrow. He squirms. He feels sticky. “Did I come in my pants?”

Kyungsoo huffs out a laugh. “I think so.” His eyes are so soft. “Are you okay? Was that okay?”

“Nothing was okay before that,” Jongin says. “God, I dropped?” 

“I think so, yeah.” Kyungsoo runs his knuckles slowly over Jongin’s cheeks. “You were gorgeous. You made me so happy.”

“I’m glad my sloppy whore mouth could do that for you,” Jongin says seriously.

Kyungsoo groans and pinches his eyes shut with his fingers for just a second before meeting Jongin’s warm gaze again. “Don’t.”

“I loved it,” Jongin assures him, kissing all around Kyungsoo’s face. Eyes, nose, lips. The faint pink swell of his cheeks, his jaw, chin. “I know you liked it, too. Nothing was bad. You made me feel perfect.”

“Yeah?” 

“I told you. I like it, being, uh, talked down to. I just—“ Now he might blush. It is harder admitting these things after orgasm. 

Kyungsoo nuzzles into his cheek. “Makes you feel good knowing that how slutty and desperate you are gets me hard?” he murmurs. “Makes me wanna fuck you until you can’t breathe or think anything but my cock?”

Well. “Uh,” Jongin blinks. “Hyung,” he whines. 

Kyungsoo smirks, eyes glimmering with kind amusement. “Yes, baby?” Even now, calm and sated and happy, Jongin thinks his entire universe is this. 

-

A few days later, Junmyeon invites them over to his house for drinks and dinner. It’s Saturday. Jongin slept over at Kyungsoo’s last night, calm and indulgent as they watched Prison Break on Netflix, Jongin in Kyungsoo’s too-short sweats, pressing his cold ankles on Kyungsoo’s thighs. They fell asleep on Kyungsoo’s large and comfy sofa, Jongin sprawled on top of his boyfriend and snoring into his ear. It was nice. 

This morning, Kyungsoo was in a focused mood, so with the exception of food and the quick half hour interlude of Kyungsoo fingering Jongin on his kitchen counter, three fingers stretching him out until he couldn’t breathe and cried a little, Kyungsoo murmuring _your cunt takes everything so well, gonna buy you a plug so you get fucked all day, just like you want_ , they worked all morning. Jongin was very productive. All the serotonin from orgasm worked. 

Now, as they walk into Junmyeon’s place, Kyungsoo calls out, “honey, I’m home,” while he balances two bottles of wine. Jongin has another two. 

“Well, you did just text me to unlock and open the door,” Junmyeon says from somewhere nearby. Kyungsoo knows, because he guides them with direction around a corner and into the living room. Junmyeon and Minseok spread out on the longest sofa, Chanyeol sitting on the floor with his long legs splayed out in front of him, an entire bottle of white wine in his grasp. Huh. Fair. It was a long week. Baekhyun and Yixing cozy up on a loveseat to the left, Yixing half on Baekhyun’s lap as he scrolls through his phone. 

“Hello, Minseok and Yixing hyungs,” Kyungsoo greets. “Fuckers, you’re here, as always.”

“This is my house!” Junmyeon protests. Yixing waves, not looking up from his phone. Probably reinventing the wheel or tweeting jokes for his students. He has the most successful cool professor image, however hard Junmyeon always tries. 

“Hyungs and Baekhyun,” Jongin nods. The only other available seating is a similar loveseat that is barely made for two people. “These chairs are lacking, Junmyeon hyung.”

“Should I leave?” Junmyeon says. “Should I die?”

“Ideally,” Kyungsoo answers. They place the wine bottles on the closest side table. He kicks Chanyeol’s knee as he and Jongin step over Chanyeol’s legs to drop down into the couch. Well, Kyungsoo drops down, then unexpectedly grabs Jongin’s waist and pulls him down right into his lap. 

Jongin huffs. “Really?”

Kyungsoo pulls him in, Jongin’s legs spreading over his thighs. Kyungsoo angles himself to the side so that he can be seen and Jongin can lean back into the plush. “I do all my best work when you’re on my lap.”

“Absolutely not,” Baekhyun says. “You’re not allowed to flirt where I can see.”

“That this comes from you is almost too ironic,” Chanyeol says. He takes a swig from the bottle. 

“Stop pretending to be moody,” Yixing tells Chanyeol. “Be better and you won’t be single.” 

Minseok cackles. “Be better! He said be better, Yeollie!”

“I mean it with love, Chanyeol-ah,” Yixing says. 

“But in a much realer sense,” Jongin starts, before Minseok’s laughter catches him, too, and he starts giggling.

“Yah!” Chanyeol whines. The grin on his face betrays any real annoyance. “You know I hate looking inward.”

“Oh, trust me, we know,” Junmyeon says. “That’s why I overheard Taeyang complaining that his advisor is never in his office hours.”

“No work, no work,” Kyungsoo says. “Our advisors at Harvard were so bad that Chanyeol can’t possibly know the right way.”

“I am a good advisor!” Chanyeol disagrees. “Taeyang hasn’t emailed me since August! It’s October!”

“See, this is why I always stayed home, Baekhyunnie,” Jongin tells him. 

“Could’ve met me sooner if you didn’t,” Kyungsoo mutters into his neck. 

“I’ve already always known you,” Jongin says. Kyungsoo snorts. He loves how cheesy Jongin is, even if he won’t admit it. 

“Wonders Never Cease is your favorite story,” Kyungsoo says randomly. 

“Huh?”

“You asked me what I think your favorite story of the collection is. It’s the fifth one, the one that people laud as the most romantic. That’s your favorite.”

“It ends with a screaming match in a hospital.” His heartbeat quickens. 

“It wasn’t a screaming match, just truth. Sometimes truth needs to be loud.”

“Stop philosophizing everything,” Jongin sighs. Kyungsoo laughs. Jongin can’t believe that anyone believes that Kyungsoo is naturally as edgy and dramatic as he pretends. Everything is a running nerdy joke to him. 

“You like it most because Hyuk and Jiwon start to heal their relationship even as everything else falls apart for Hyuk. That’s the type of story you’d like. Something with hope, with a love you wait your life for.”

“It’s because I’m a Capricorn,” Jongin says. God, Kyungsoo is right. What is there but this?

“What did I say about being horny in front of me?” Baekhyun demands. “Jongin, will you whore around in front of me, your hyung? Practically your father?”

“It’s like you want to die,” Minseok says. 

“I am very militant,” Kyungsoo warns.

Yixing snorts. “No, you’re not.”

“You’re the biggest sap ever,” Junmyeon says. “That’s why you do the history you do, because you care too much.”’

“He cries watching anime, Jongin,” Chanyeol adds, smoothing his hand on the carpet. “Myeonnie hyung, is the food almost here? What movie are we watching?”

“Moonlight,” Kyungsoo suggests. Jongin is glad he doesn’t dispute his friends’ claims; they all know it’s true. Kyungsoo is very self-aware, and full of multitudes. 

“We’re here to have a _good_ time, not start bawling in the first ten minutes,” says Minseok. 

“Life is suffering,” Yixing says ominously, as if Baekhyun isn’t blowing raspberries into his arm. Kyungsoo laughs, cute little bursts of air on Jongin’s skin.

“Junmyeon, hyung, hyung, hyung,” Chanyeol repeats, “food, food, food,” and then Baekhyun joins in, “food, food, food,” and then Kyungsoo, too, chanting, “food, food, food,” as Minseok laughs and covers his ears. Jongin hits Kyungsoo’s shoulders and tells them to shut up, but that only gets the three of them chanting louder. 

“Get out of my house!” Junmyeon yells over the noise. 

“No!” Baekhyun yells back. “It’s mine now!” 

In the distance, the doorbell rings. The three idiots—Jongin can’t believe his boyfriend is on that list—immediately shut up. 

“Oh,” Chanyeol says, voice mild. “The food is here.”

-

 _Make sure you prep today_ , Kyungsoo texted him this morning at 6AM, like some freak who wakes up before he absolutely must be in for classes. _Make sure you’re wet for hyung_. 

Jongin did, of course, but since it’s a Tuesday and they both have packed schedules, class and office hours and the two crucial hours Jongin spends every day staring at his computer blankly and thinking about writing instead of actually writing, he doesn’t know when Kyungsoo thinks they'll get a chance to fuck. 

Jongin loves that his office is at the end of the hallway, because it makes it harder for students to find his office hours. Sometimes, when they are especially unresponsive during class, he doesn’t remind them that he has them and unsticks the paper listing his available hours in the blind hope that perhaps grade desperation will refer them to the syllabus. Baekhyun laughs whenever Jongin mentions this. _You think they read the syllabus?_ Baekhyun teaches lit and rhetoric, though, so he is even more jaded about reading probability than Jongin is, although less so than Minseok. No one worries about Seoul’s literacy rates more than Minseok. 

This is not a bad-office-hours day, but only two students stopped by to get quick advice on characterization for their next character-driven short story assignment. He smashes through two cups of green tea and a chocolate donut as he idly rolls back on forth on his chair, and manages to write two full single-spaced pages of a story he should have finished yesterday. Productivity is exhausting. 

There’s a knock on the door as he prints out copies of a guide warning his students away from using exclamation marks in their writing. He stares at his printer. Does he want to pretend he’s not here? His printer beeps loudly, and makes a worrisome noise. Right, maybe plan B—but he doesn’t get a plan B, because the knob twists and whoever it is steps inside and shuts the door. 

Jongin whirls around in his chair. If it’s one of his students, automatic F. “Excuse me?” he starts, but his heart rate mellows when he sees it’s just Kyungsoo. Then picks back up in double time. Oh, he looks even better than usual today. His hair is pushed off his forehead, a thick dark green sweater pushed up to his elbows, the muscles of his forearm tense where they rest on his grey slacks. “Honey. You look good.” 

Jongin shifts in his seat. An hour ago, he took the elevator up to the seventh floor, where no one uses the probably-haunted bathrooms, and locked himself into the bathroom then a stall to slide three lubed fingers back into himself, makes sure he was still loose enough and wet enough for whatever, whenever Kyungsoo wanted. Is that what Kyungsoo wants now?

“Face against the wall,” Kyungsoo says in greeting, voice gruff and impatient. “The corner between your bookshelves.” Jongin cock begins to swell. He can’t obey fast enough. 

This is a good corner, across and a little hidden from the door, the tall weight of his bookshelves shading him. Jongin wriggles his hips a little. Kyungsoo is on his back in moments, sliding his hands around Jongin waist to undo his fly with quick efficiency. “Did you prep?” Kyungsoo asks.

“Mhmm,” Jongin nods, “checked again an hour ago to make sure I was ready for you.”

“Good,” Kyungsoo mutters, sliding Jongin’s dark jeans and yellow briefs just under his ass. He won’t have any leverage to fuck himself back, Kyungsoo in full control. “Is your cunt still wet?”

His… “My….? Huh?” 

“Your cunt,” Kyungsoo repeats. “I know you heard me. Is it still wet? Or were you not good?”

Jongin feels too warm, burned hot on his face and ears. “I...was good.” Kyungsoo gropes his ass, kneading and grabbing roughly at the flesh. He spreads him with a bruising grip on the right cheek, digging his nails in as Jongin reluctantly finishes, “my cunt is still wet.”

“Good.” Kyungsoo lets go, and Jongin’s cock, now too stiff, twitches at the sound of Kyungsoo’s zipper. He’s so aware of the noise. He braces his hands with his palms flat on the wall in front of him, and his breathing picks up in anticipation. 

Wait. “Hyung, did you lock the door behind you?”

“Does it matter?” asks Kyungsoo. “You ready?”

“Well, yes, to both—“ the rest of his thought dies out when Kyungsoo shoves his cock hard into Jongin’s hole, still gripping his ass to hold him open. Jongin’s mouth falls open in a gasp, and then another when the burn settles in. Kyungsoo always feels like too much to take. Surely it’s poetic that his body still gives way despite that. 

Kyungsoo wastes no time, doesn’t allow Jongin to adjust and relax, before he’s pulling out and pushing back in too hard, his other hand wrapped around Jongin’s small waist. He repeats, shoving deep into Jongin in testing motions, drawing a sharp breath from Jongin every time.

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin complains, “it hurts.” Not really, not much, but Jongin is nothing if not whiny; last time Kyungsoo fucked him, three nights ago in the soft down of his king-sized bed, he prepped Jongin with four fingers for far too long before feeding his cock into Jongin’s stretched hole. The contrast right now is jarring. He wonders what brought it on. 

Kyungsoo stops moving, rubbing a soft hand up under Jongin’s shirt, fingers gentle on his stomach. “Your hole is so tight,” Kyungsoo whispers in his ear, body pressed close to Jongin’s, his dick as far in as it can get. Jongin jolts. “Think you were a virgin if I didn’t know how much this pussy begs for dick.” He grinds in, slow rolls of his hips that send pleasure sparking through Jongin. 

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin whispers, embarrassed. His cock is smearing wet all over his white shirt. He squeezes his hand over Kyungsoo’s hand to signal that he can move again. _Yeah?_ Kyungsoo mutters. Jongin nods. 

“What, baby?” Kyungsoo begins to settle into a tempo, hips rapidly speeding up with every fuck into Jongin’s body. Kyungsoo sucks on the lobe of Jongin’s right ear, at the hidden skin right behind it, where he can work a small hickey into the skin without Jongin fearing discovery. God, Jongin loves him inside, loves the way the fat weight of it stretches Jongin’s hole, centers the pleasure of getting fucked into the blunt, messy grind of his big cock. “Tell hyung if my cock feels good in your wet pussy.”

Kyungsoo has to stop _saying_ these things. 

“I know it’s hard for you to answer when your pussy is stuffed full,” says Kyungsoo, sucking on Jongin’s earlobe too rough, “but try for me.” He fucks Jongin with intent, holding his body in place like it’s just a hole, a, a cunt for Kyungsoo to shove himself into. It doesn’t hurt anymore, the embarrassment of Kyungsoo’s words driving out any pain and only keeping tight shameful arousal in his pulsing cock. 

“Hyung, your cock feels so good in my wet pussy,” Jongin whines, trying in vain to push back. Kyungsoo grunts and slams into him, drawing moans from Jongin’s throat with each mean drag of his cock. 

“Shit, shut up,” Kyungsoo groans, squeezing Jongin's ass again, using his other hand to cover Jongin’s mouth. “You’ll get me caught.” _Just him?_ Jongin thinks, hysteric, like he’s second to Kyungsoo’s pleasure, to the risk Kyungsoo faces. God, he wishes this didn’t turn him on so much, but it does, it does, and the low hush of his moans by Kyungsoo’s hand only turns him on more. He can’t remember if he has a spare shirt in here but he hopes so, because this one will have too many suspicious stains.

Fuck, they’re in his office. Kyungsoo is fucking him in his office. He doesn’t know if Kyungsoo locked the door. 

“Hmpmh,” Jongin stresses into Kyungsoo’s palm. Kyungsoo slides his hand down to Jongin’s chin, thumbing the corner of his lips to give him room to speak. “Did you—is it, is the door locked?”

Kyungsoo huffs out a laugh into Jongin’s neck. Unexpected. Perhaps jarring. “Baby, if you were that worried,” he adjusts himself, just the slightest shift, but it’s, that’s, Jongin can’t breathe, there’s no way Jongin can breathe, nothing can feel this good, “you wouldn’t still be this slutty.” Jongin is not—or, well, he is, but not in this exact moment; he has tact, he has concerns, he gets his prostate pressed tight by Kyungsoo’s dick, and he loses all train of thought, eyes fluttering and hole clenching. “Do you even hear yourself? Realize how you’re acting?” 

He tries to think of himself as a body instead of a mess of emotion and intense feeling; he feels his hands where one is twisted back to curl at Kyungsoo’s waist, pulling him in and keeping him there; he feels the high arch of his back and his bum snug on Kyungsoo’s pelvis; the muted wet sound of his hole clenching around the length inside him; the frankly embarrassing keening, high and desperate in the back of his throat, the mindless little _please please I want it please_ with every thrust into his body. He shuts his mouth. 

“Looked forward to fucking you all day,” Kyungsoo admits. “And all yesterday, too.” His hips are almost brutal now, palm back over Jongin’s mouth as Jongin pants around the consuming pleasure. “You have the best body, baby, wish I was in you always.” Kyungsoo’s voice is breathless now and the grip on Jongin’s ass escalates into dull pain with every thrust and the roughness of Kyungsoo’s hand. “Love this ass, love fucking it, love coming inside it, shit—“ Jongin is so close, and he knows Kyungsoo is too, with how much wetter Jongin is now, precome fucked into him as Kyungsoo pants into his neck. Kyungsoo gets sweet when he’s close, hands freed to pace over Jongin’s sides. Now it’s _you have the best body, wish I was in you always_ instead of _tell hyung if my cock feels good in your wet cunt_ , and Jongin likes both just as much. 

“I want it,” breathes Jongin. “Come in me, make sure it’s inside, hyung, I want it, I want it, make me come, I want it,” and Kyungsoo groaning into his neck, tempo fractured and uneven and messy, cock swelling inside, replying, “okay, okay, I’ll give it to you, baby, tighten around hyung so I can give it to you,” and then the tight press of their bodies when Jongin listens, Jongin always listens, “you’re so good, love you so much, you gonna come for me,” as Kyungsoo spurts his spend all inside Jongin, short, deep grunts when he fucks Jongin through it until Jongin finishes, too, dick twitching come onto his shirt. 

Kyungsoo slumps over Jongin’s body, moaning when Jongin tightens around him with the aftershocks and draws a final release of come inside. Jongin’s knees are so weak he could fall at any moment, and only Kyungsoo’s weight keeps him up. 

“Hyung,” Jongin says after a few moments of silence, his heart rate now calm. “If the door isn’t locked, you will never get in my ass again.”

Kyungsoo barks out a laugh. “Oh?”

“ _Never_ ,” Jongin promises. 

“Oh, no,” Kyungsoo deadpans. He pulls out, shushing Jongin when he whimpers at the emptiness. He hears a crinkle of plastic, and when he twists his head around, Kyungsoo has one of those small travel tissue packs, and is pulling a few out to wipe Jongin’s thighs and butt. God, he’s so cute. Travel Kleenex. He can’t believe his boyfriend is this way. “Of course I locked the door, Jongin. I’m not unwell.”

“Tops lose a lot of brain cells when they’re horny,” Jongin offers. Kyungsoo snorts. He pulls his briefs and pants back up, wrapping his hands around to tuck Jongin back into his clothing and doing the zipper and button. Jongin turns around to face him, leaning his shoulders back on the wall. He wiggles his eyebrows. “Hey.” 

Kyungsoo smiles, just a small one. “Hey.”

“You wanna talk about what’s bothering you?”

“Who says anything’s bothering me?”

“You got needy when you were close, and didn’t spend ten minutes telling me I’m good like usual. Not to catastrophize your sexual habits, but.” He shrugs. “Also, your entire, like,” he waves his hands at Kyungsoo, “aura. You’re off.”

Kyungsoo’s mouth tightens. See, Jongin wants to tell him, see. “So I’m having a bad day because you didn’t drop or get praised for ten minutes? Really?”

“Also, you sounded like an asshole just now,” Jongin says, tone light and careful. “In case you weren’t aware of that. That was an asshole thing to say.”

Kyungsoo frowns, a tight little downtown of his lips, and Jongin sees him lose the fight tensed in his body. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Jongin says. He pushes off the wall and steps into Kyungsoo’s space, curling an arm around him in loose invitation for a hug. He’s pleased when Kyungsoo accepts, resting his forehead just under Jongin’s chin. “Honey.”

“Didn’t get research grant,” he mutters. “Which is fine. But then everything else’s been shit, too. Microsoft Word wouldn’t work yesterday, had to deal with IT, lost my lesson plan, forgot my jacket in Junmyeon’s office when it was 0° Celsius…” He sighs. “And today just kept going downhill, too. I don’t know, I’m just… being dramatic, I’m sure. I will be fine.”

Jongin rubs the soft hair at Kyungsoo’s nape. “You will be fine,” he agrees, “but it is okay that you aren’t now, hyung. Yeah?”

“Maybe.”

“Not maybe, _yes_ ,” Jongin chastises. “Plus, tomorrow’s Wednesday. Y’know what that means.”

“Forty students emailing me asking if my office hours are today, as if it’s not on the syllabus, course page, and department site?” Kyungsoo mumbles into Jongin’s shirt. There’s no way his come is not flaky by now, but Kyungsoo is not a frequent hugger, skinship often reserved to hand-holding in private or his arm wrapped around Jongin’s shoulder, and he’s not going to pass this up before they have to. 

“ _No_ ,” Jongin laughs. “Or, well, yes, but it means that you won’t reply to them because you’ll be wrapped under three blankets and watching Breaking Bad on your phone until noon. Then you can go to the gym, have hot stew, invite me over to get your dick sucked, _nap_ —”

Kyungsoo groans. “Napping turns me on more than anything else.” Jongin hums in agreement. “You sucking me off is a close second, though.”

“You’re such a charmer,” Jongin says. 

Kyungsoo pulls his head away to look up into Jongin’s. “Thank you.” Jongin thinks he means more than gratitude. 

“I know,” Jongin says, stroking Kyungsoo’s cheek with his thumb. “You too.” Kyungsoo’s face softens. 

-

Later, when Jongin is home, cozy under the comforter and snug in the deep green sweater Kyungsoo gave him earlier to wear over his soiled button-up, he gets a text from Kyungsoo. 

_I miss you_ , it says. 

_yeah?_

_Yeah. Wish you were here in this place at this time with me_

_oh you’re A poet now…?  
Wanna be in every pplace at all times always with you _

_Baby  
Fuck I miss you I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re all I ever want_

Jongin is warm everywhere, his body burning with happiness. _youre more vocal in text_

_It is easier. I can try to make sense of how I feel.  
Just get overwhelmed when I’m with you _

_In a good way?_

_In the best way  
Baby_

_Honey_ , Jongin answers, along with the honeypot emoji and a yellow heart.

_I know I said it while coming, but I meant what I said  
I meant it, that I love you so much. I’m sorry that’s how I said it the first time_

Jongin didn’t—know, if acknowledgement was coming. This is unexpected. But Kyungsoo is unpredictable, and so beyond anything Jongin knew. 

_Htyung hyung hyun_  
hyung hyung hyung  
Come over I wanna say it in person it’s fine if you don’t that way yet but I gotta 

There’s no reply, and since it’s nearing eight PM, and Kyungsoo is an old man with old man sleeping habits, Jongin figures he passed out. That might also explain how open he was, uninhibited from sleepiness. He gets back to playing Sims Mobile, and curses his phone when his sims refuse to work and earn money so he can renovate their home. 

A knock on the door is unexpected. He tiptoes to his front door, quiet and careful, and peeks out through the peephole.

“Hyung,” he says, bewildered, opening the door, “what are…” Then he remembers the text he sent fifteen minutes ago. Then, “ _hyung_ ,” when he pulls Kyungsoo inside and shuts the door. He engulfs Kyungsoo in a tight hug, overwhelmed and almost scared by how much he feels for Kyungsoo. 

“Hi,” Kyungsoo murmurs into his collarbone. “You asked me to come over.” Jongin hums. “And I missed you.”

 _He is the softest, the best boyfriend in the world_ , Jongin thinks once he cuddles back under the comforter on his bed with Kyungsoo, their legs entangled and breath soft in reciprocation. He stares at Kyungsoo, the warm glow in his big brown eyes, bare now with his glasses on the bedside table. Jongin is in Kyungsoo’s sweater and worn boxers, but Kyungsoo’s soft black joggers and neat black t-shirt are comfortable on his skin. For some time, sleep almost overtaking then both, they just lie there, staring at one another and pressed closed. 

“Hi,” Kyungsoo repeats. 

“Hi,” Jongin whispers. He pushes his fingers through the soft, close-cut hair of Kyungsoo’s short undercut. He breathes in. “I love you.”

Kyungsoo smiles. Eyes lidded, breathing even, mouth slack with sleepiness and love and warmth with a deep kiss goodnight. Him, too.

-

Jongin awakes with a gasp, a slow burn creeping into his body, sweat clinging to his forehead, his sweater to his chest. Feeling comes to him in increments; the curl of his toes, the heavy arm around his waist, the panting on his neck, the urgent pulse of his dick, the steady grind of Kyungsoo’s erection on his ass. 

_Oh, God_. When he cranes his head to catch a glimpse of Kyungsoo’s face, his eyes are still closed, face slack apart from the heavy exhales of his mouth. He’s still asleep. He’s still asleep, but his hip are unceasing. Jongin needs him to wake up right now. 

“Kyungsoo hyung,” he breathes, “Kyungsoo-ah,” and twists his arm back to shake Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “Hyung.”

“Hmphmh?” Kyungsoo mumbles sleepily behind him. Jongin realizes when Kyungsoo realizes, the sudden intake of breath, his hips stop, pull back just enough that they no longer touch there. “Fuck, I’m sorry, Jongin, I don’t know how—“

“I was asleep, too, I was moving, too, it’s okay, just didn’t wanna be the only one awake now.”

Kyungsoo hides his face in Jongin’s neck. “‘S embarrassing, like I’m a teenager who can’t keep it in his pants.”

Jongin blushes. He looks straight ahead, thankful that they’re back to chest and Kyungsoo can’t see him, how hazy his vision feels with still-present arousal. “I liked it.”

“What was that?” 

Jongin clears his throat. “I liked it, what we were doing.” 

Kyungsoo hums and presses close again. He’s still hard, and Jongin wishes that Kyungsoo’s sweats were off. “What is it exactly that you liked? Us cuddling?”

“Kyungsoo-ah,” Jongin complains, “don’t tease.”

The slap on his inner thigh is jolting. “You know that if you want something, you ask,” Kyungsoo says sharply. How Kyungsoo can turn this on at free will is beyond him, but the deep demand in Kyungsoo’s voice makes him feel small and bad and perfect. It’s Pavlovian. 

Jongin’s eyes flutter. “I liked that, that you were grinding your dick on my ass.” 

“Why?”

“It felt good,” says Jongin. 

“Try again,” says Kyungsoo. 

Jongin inhales. “Liked that you were using me, that it’s better for you than me.”

“Hm,” Kyungsoo hums, restarting a slow grind of his clothed cock in the crease of Jongin’s ass, “you like when I treat you like you’re just here for me to use, something for me to fuck?”

“I,” Jongin starts. He swallows. There are no right responses for this, but maybe yes? He knows that he loves the way Kyungsoo says that, _something for me to fuck_. 

“Honey,” Kyungsoo murmurs, honey sweet, “that’s because that’s what you are. Hm?”

“Hyung,” he says, squirming back on Kyungsoo’s erection. 

“Don’t be greedy,” Kyungsoo chastises. Still, he slides Jongin's boxers down to under his ass, the band snug under the curve of his bum and the tightness in his balls. Then Kyungsoo’s sweats and briefs are down, the soft hair on his thighs scratching Jongin’s. The naked weight of his dick makes Jongin moan, heavy and fat when Kyungsoo spreads his ass to press his dick in the sweat-slick crease. For a few moments, that’s all there is, Kyungsoo grinding slow and dirty against Jonginn’s body, the friction drawing Kyungsoo to reach over Jongin’s pliant body to grab a bottle of lube from the bedside and slick himself up. His cockhead drags on Jongin’s hole too often, and Jongin's breath hitches each time. 

“I want it,” Jongin breathes, “Kyungsoo-ah, I want it, I want it.” Kyungsoo grunts in acknowledgment, but he still just grinds forward in sharp movements. 

“Hyung, I want you to fuck me,” Jongin tries again. “Fuck me, please, two fingers and I’ll be good. I’m still a little loose from earlier.” It’s the middle of the night, many hours from the rough and dirty fuck in Jongin’s office, but he wants to convince Kyungsoo that it works, wants to be full up and fucked soon. Now. He wants it now. 

Kyungsoo also knows it’s been many hours, and aware that Jongin speaks from desperation, a desperation he doesn’t deserve when he just got fucked. “Do you know how to do anything other than beg for cock?” Kyungsoo asks. His voice is mild. Jongin knows it is worse when his voice is mild. His dick spurts wet in his briefs. 

“I only want you,” Jongin offers 

Kyungsoo ignores that. Or maybe he uses it as leverage in this mean game, aware again that nothing gets Jongin harder, nothing makes him come faster. “Aren’t you sore?”

No,” Jongin lies. Does that matter?

“Liar,” Kyungsoo says. Jongin wants to see his face. “Can’t even fathom what type of greedy slut begs to get fucked twice today alone, let alone that you’d lie for it.”

Jongin cannot imagine how much darker his face gets with blood, shame fueled by the hot flux of sex. In a moment of boldness: “you like it, anyway.”

Kyungsoo barks out a short laugh, a mocking _ha_ sound. “Full sentences. What was all that schooling good for, otherwise?

Jongin is so embarrassed he could cry. “I can’t.”

“You can,” demands Kyungsoo. 

Jongin shakes his head, burying his face forward into his pillow. “Can’t,” he mumbles. All of this is too much. He is too hot. This is too much. 

Kyungsoo stops moving, but Jongin is glad he doesn’t move away; the loss of contact would be debilitating right now. His voice is soft when, “what’s your word, baby?” Kyungsoo is so careful about these things; Jongin doesn’t care for distinguishing it as something other than just their normal sex life, but Kyungsoo demanded at least an out for Jongin, and after prodding from Jongin, an out for himself, too.

“Green,” Jongin says immediately, “don’t need my word.”

Kyungsoo exhales for the first time in too long. “Okay.” Now he does move his hips back. Jongin cries out in distress, but all he gets is the slow play of Kyungsoo’s fingers down his arm. “You’re not getting fucked until you remember how to use full sentences.”

“You’re being an asshole,” Jongin says. Now, it is a matter of pride. _No, it’s not. You just want to see how far you can push him_. 

“Okay,” says Kyungsoo. “Then goodnight.” 

The lack of body heat is sudden. The comforter is down to Jongin’s thighs, and even with the sweater, he is still cold. Kyungsoo doesn’t run very hot, but the friction, the trapping of warmth while they slept, that disappears, too. Jongin is cold, now. 

Still. There are buttons to push. He wriggles his arm down his body to take hold of himself, and the moan he lets out at contact is but a little exaggerated. Rarely does he touch himself when Kyungsoo fucks him, when Kyungsoo is clear and in charge, but—Kyungsoo is not fucking him. That’s the point. 

“Do you not want to be good?” Kyungsoo says.

“If you wanted me good, you’d fuck me.” Touching himself is good like this; the best part is of course the sure knowledge that Kyungsoo watches. He hears the hard exhale from his boyfriend when he trails his fingers down to rub at his slick perineum, right over the tight mess of pleasure inside. 

“Right, because you’re a bitch in heat who only knows how to get fucked,” he says, an edge in his voice Jongin has not heard before. He sounds… displeased. Like really, truly, not just the blank, cold front of control Jongin knows and expects, but a betrayal of genuine reaction. “You wanna get spanked, then? Is that it?”

“You couldn’t make it hurt enough to scare me,” Jongin bluffs. His heart races. 

No words, then—no need for them; just Kyungsoo roughly pushing him over all the way into his stomach, uncaring of the awkward positions that Jongin’s arms catch in, and then hitting Jongin’s ass three times in succession, so hard that Jongin’s body jolts and his teeth grind together. Kyungsoo, all that he is, doesn’t stop there, keeps hitting Jongin until Jongin doubts he will sit soon. 

“Hyung,” he gasps, surprised at how wet this one word is with spit overflowing in his mouth, the delayed breaths he barely catches. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Kyungsoo says. 

Now, Jongin listens. This spanking is not how Jongin imagined it would go, it’s not like the groping pats Kyungsoo gives when orgasm is close, or the paced, measured ones that Jongin sees in books or films. This is meant to hurt. It does. He doesn’t know when he starts crying, but he knows that he cannot stop; this ugly, sobbing cry catches his breath, his cheeks are wet, his nose runs, his mouth hangs open for want of air, and he cannot still the mindless drool that spills out.

“This is what you wanted,” Kyungsoo says. “I bet you’re still hard, harder over this.” He slaps Jongin’s ass so hard Jongin’s vision blurs. 

Where his vision blurs, his sense of touch and feeling intensifies—Kyungsoo is right, he realizes, Kyungsoo is right; this is what he wanted all he along, for Kyungsoo to ground him with terrible, perfect control, humiliate him and make Jongin feel better than anything else in the entire world. He _is_ hard. Harder. In the entire universe, how can there be anything other than this? Kyungsoo’s hands on his body, immersion by the sharp ache on his skin and the warmth everywhere inside. 

“Hyung,” he sobs, but without purpose now. It feels right to say, to beg, “hyu—hyung,” without knowing what he’s begging for. Anything. All of it. Everything. “I’m—“

“Almost,” Kyungsoo says, and spanks him again. Softer voice now but the slap’s just as mean. “You’re almost where I want you to be.”

Jongin doesn’t know exactly when he reaches whatever that elusive place is. One moment, pain and pleasure all over, then he feels numb, disconnected, three miles inside and away from here. He doesn’t think he makes anymore noise, just soft whimpers, a low reminder of his being, maybe for himself. He’s crying. 

For some time, maybe five minutes, maybe twenty, all he knows are his soft broken sounds and the wet slide of tears on his cheeks and temple. Then there is the recollection of where he is, a total darkness and the realization that it’s because Kyungsoo’s hidden them both under the dense comforter. Jongin likes that. Likes more that they’re face to face now. His face is curved into Kyungsoo’s neck, the soft space at his clavicle. Kyungsoo holds him close, rubbing one hand down his back, the other a solid weight around his side. Kyungsoo is sweetest when Jongin drops. He murmurs sweet things to him, “sweetheart, you’re so perfect,” and “you’re the prettiest man,” and, always, “you make me so happy.”

Jongin stretches a little. “My butt hurts,” he croaks. Kyungsoo makes a consoling noise, still rubbing his back. 

“You weren’t being very good.” He snuggles closer. “You’re perfect now, though, hmm?” Jongin is glad his face is hidden. 

“I am in love with you,” Jongin tells Kyungsoo’s collarbone. 

“What, because I spanked you until you cried and dropped?”

Jongin yawns. “Exactly that. “

 

The hand on his back stops. Kyungsoo is hesitant when he asks, “was I… was that okay? I know you’re mentioned it before, but I think I might’ve been too harsh, I hope it wasn’t—“ He huffs out a shaky breath. “You can be honest with me, if it didn’t, or was too—“

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin interrupts. He pulls his head back to look into Kyungsoo’s eyes.The whites of his irises are wide in the darkness. “No. I loved that.”

“Yeah?” Kyungsoo asks. Jongin hates when he sounds unsure. 

“Yeah,” Jongin promises. 

“You’re still hard,” Kyungsoo says. “You want me to…?” Jongin nods. He’s still hard, Jesus, even after getting spanked so hard he probably can’t stand. No one ever made him as hot and turned on as Kyungsoo does. 

Kyungsoo drags his hand from Jongin’s waist around to his crotch to cup Jongin’s dick. His palm is cold. Jongin hisses, gets the second’s discomfort soothed away by a soft kiss on his upper lip, another as Kyungsoo squeezes lightly around the length of it, and then the slow draw into a languid, wet kiss when Kyungsoo starts stroking him. 

Kyungsoo’s palm is still slick enough with lube from earlier, but the hint of friction where air dried the skin disappears soon with the slide of precome down his cock. “You get so wet for me,” Kyungsoo whispers into the kiss, rubbing circles around the tip of Jongin’s cock until Jongin whimpers, the stimulation on the slit almost too much to handle. 

“Feels so good,” Jongin breathes. It does. Kyungsoo excels at this. Pressure where needed, the ghost of a touch right above Jongin’s balls, the gentle fondle of Jongin’s balls under his fingers, pressing down just the slightest more until Jongin gasps and squirms. Squirms into or away, he doesn’t know. “Kyungsoo—“

“Yeah, baby,” Kyungsoo answers. “Is that good for you?” Jongin nods frantically. The ache in his stomach builds so fast. “Love how you sound, love how you feel.” He pumps Jongin’s cock faster, and doesn’t stop him when his hips fuck forward into his hand without purpose. 

“Oh, God, oh, fuck,” Jongin moans. His thighs shake. His ass hurts when his lower body flexes with tight desire. “Hyung, please.”

“Anything,” Kyungsoo says. He trails his lips across Jongin’s lips, cheek, jaw. Jongin wants to be eighteen again and stupid enough to allow hickeys where anyone can see. “Whatever you want, it’s always yours.” He licks his way back into Jongin’s mouth, traces his tongue in the spit-wet softness of Jongin’s mouth, sucks on Jongin’s heavy and lax tongue. “Always gonna be yours.” With a promise like that, of course Jongin comes. 

-

Minseok leans against Jongin’s door frame, tapping his fingers on the side panel of dark wood. “History department has that visiting guest lecture in twenty minutes.”

Jongin groans. Thirteen or so minutes ago, he banged his forehead onto his desk, and has yet to move since. Why move? This is his home now. “Don’t wanna.”

“Kyungsoo is introducing them,” Minseok says, 

“Already heard it twelve thousand times.” Thursday, and this is already the longest week of his life. The week before finals is the worst, like everyone in academia decides that this is the right time for deadlines. He has to get this article on sex, movement, and place to the journal by Monday, and get it proofread by Yixing and Minseok before then. His students are complaining about getting feedback for their last story drafts already, even though it’s only been a week. He is so tired, and so overwhelmed. 

“But there’s definitely going to be chicken and soda.” He taps his fingers. 

“Ugh,” Jongin says. He lifts his head. “Fine, If you want to force me.”

“You’re an adult, no one's forcing you to do anything.”

Jongin grabs his coat as he sweeps by Minseok out of the office. “It’s like I never have a choice. I’m more than just a ploy in interdepartmental politics.”

 _!!!!!!_ , he texts Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo promised to eat him out if they see each other today. He’s still only staying for half of it. Fuck lectures.

**Author's Note:**

> send me prompts at 1288z@tumblr if you like :)


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